Home design and style happenings in the DC/MD/VA area // from the staff of HOME & DESIGN Magazine

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New Showroom Debuts in Rockville

Home & Design just toured the most recent addition to the local home-furnishings scene: On February 18th, Arhaus Furniture officially opened a vast, 26,000-square-foot showroom in North Bethesda Market, a new mixed-use development on Rockville Pike across from White Flint Mall. The store offers what the company calls “global, artisanal furnishings, accessories and jewelry.” The showroom is chock full—the kind of venue where browsing can go on for hours. “We put a lot of emphasis on presentation,” explains Gary Babcock, the company’s creative director. “We want it to look theatrical.”

Arhaus Furniture includes a vibrant, innovative mix of styles and sensibilities; Indonesian wall hangings combine with one-of-a-kind antiques, Italian dining sets and Indian carpets, while a room showcasing jewelry, an area displaying carpets and textiles, a light-filled atrium and a separate, teak-paneled room all offer attractive and unusual backdrops for viewing furniture and accessories. “The showroom is divided into lifestyle lines,” Babcock says. So vignettes represent the company’s various furniture types: Cottage style, Asian, transitional, English and outdoors—to name a few. Vignettes are arranged so that a customer may be inspired to buy the whole scene, then bring home one of the company’s staff interior designers to put it all together. All items are made for Arhaus; the company doesn’t carry lines by other manufacturers. According to Babcock, 70 percent of Arhaus merchandise is made in the U.S.; the rest is imported chiefly from India, Italy and Indonesia, and some is antique or recycled.

Arhaus Furniture has been in business since 1986 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, with 35 retail locations across the country. As part of the opening celebration for the Bethesda store, Arhaus will contribute 10 percent of its sales to the Children’s Inn at NIH between February 24 and 28. 11412 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda, MD; 301-230-2973. arhaus.com —Julie Sanders